This course will introduce students to the theory of music, providing them with the skills needed to read and write Western music notation, as well as to understand, analyse, and listen informedly. It will cover material such as pitches and scales, intervals, clefs, rhythm, form, meter, phrases and cadences, and basic harmony.
This course covers the fundamentals of Western music theory, from the absolute basics to some more advanced concepts and, as such, is the perfect course for beginners and more experienced musicians alike.
Follow us on twitter
@musictheorymooc
#edmusictheory

Ministrado por

Dr Michael Edwards

Dr Zack Moir

Teaching Fellow

Richard Worth

Dr Nikki Moran

Dr John Philip Kitchen, MA BMus PhD FRCO LRAM

Eli Appleby-Donald

Transcrição

So from this pool of notes we're now going to look at more scales beyond just the scale of C major. >> So let's take a different tonic this time. Let's take A as our tonic instead of C. If we start now and play all the notes that we know and all the notes that we now know belong to C-major, we get A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A. So by taking A, as our new tonic what we see is that we actually still use all the same notes, but now we've got a different pattern of tones and semitones. We get A to B is a tone. B to C is a semitone. C to D is a tone. D to E is a tone. E to F is a semitone. F to G is a tone. G to A is a tone. Now this is called the Natural minor scale and we'll talk more about this next week. Or also the Aeolian mode. It's still a diatonic scale because it still has seven notes with five tones and two semitones but they have a different sequence of tones and semitones now as opposed to the major scale. Now, many of you may have heard of modes, especially if you visit a lot of rock guitar websites. So we'll briefly look at those now. See, one of the amazing things about music is that, simply by reorientating ourselves around these notes in C-major, we can create different patterns and different kinds of melodies. So for instance. This may be the wrong time of year for you, but. [MUSIC] So, that's God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and Merry Christmas, if it is Christmas. I think you can hear that, that is different from the Auld Lang Syne, or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, or God Save the Queen, or something else like that. That is because I was orientating that melody around the A, around that aeolian mode that we just saw up on the stave. >> So the relationship of the tones and the semi-tones between the tonics changed and this is how we get a different flavor, we get a different quality. >> Well, we already know that starting on C, we have a C Major scale. If we go up to D, this is the second note of C Major, we get a mode called the Dorian mode. It's made up of the notes D, E, F, G, A, B, C back to D. This gives us a different pattern and a different sound. >> Okay, again if we move up to the E, that's the third degree of C Major. So if we build a mode on the third degree. It's called the Phrygian mode. In this case, we have E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, and again, that obviously gives us a different pattern of tones and semitones and again, that changes the flavor, or the quality of the mode. >> Starting on F. We get F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, which is now called the Lydian mode. Then onto G, which is the fifth degree. If we start this process on the fifth degree, we get something called the Mixolydian mode. We get G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. This has got a very similar pattern of tones and semitones to the major scale, but it is slightly different. So again we get a different sound, a different flavor, what we'd describe as a different quality. >> We've already looked at A, which we know is called the aeolian mode. Moving on to B. We get the notes B, C, D, E, F, G, A, back to B. This one is now known as the Locrian mode. That's all seven modes. >> There's a lot of information to take in, but we have given you some exercises and some additional information in the supplementary material. For this lecture. So there you have the modes. The names we just gave you are the 20th century names for them and they are often described as the church modes and indeed many of them were used in ancient church music. You will also find them around the world they were popular in jazz from the late 50's onward. Often used in popular music. >> we've used the kind of names that you'll find listed for them, in things like guitar websites, or guitar player magazines. Or jazz theory textbooks. But what's really important, is, if you can find a keyboard, or you have your own instrument, or you sing. What would be really is if you could just take the major scale, and start this pool of notes on each. "Tonic", so C to C, B to B, E to E. And get used to the sound and the, the quality of these different modes. >> And we've heard when I did that God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, that was a different sound. Just to show you that it really does make a difference, we're going to now do a little piece of modal music. This one is going to be orientated around G, which makes it the Mixoydian mode. >> The fifth degree. [MUSIC] >> Which is our slightly jazzy version of She Moved Through the Fair which is built on the G Mixolydian. >> Mixolydian is built on the first degree of the major scale.